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04/11/2014 – 04/17/2014

“What can be newly said about this savage, many-headed dragon of the American New Wave? You either love it or you love it. Bickle remains an authentic everyman, a walking dumb-as-shit smashup of conservative responses, but also a disenfranchised victim of the corporate-imperial combine, an ex-soldier used to meaningless death, lost in the streets of his own empty freedom. There may not be a more essentially American figure haunting the national cinema.” – Michael Atkinson, The Village Voice

“Mr. Capra has produced a film which is eloquent with affection for gentle people, for the plain, unimpressive little people who want reassurance and faith. Many of his camera devices are magnificent in the scope of their suggestion, and always he tells his story well, with his customary expert spacing of comedy and serious drama. Only space prevents us from enthusing loudly about individual touches.” – Bosley Crowther, The New York Times

“A dingy, mordantly comic Rashomon for the post-Soviet era. Porumboiu knows that every dank laugh opens the window a little wider and lets in the air of self-awareness. For all its pessimism, the movie prompts a viewer to search his or her own memories for actions rather than reactions, and to mull over the differences between the two. It’s a dark little ride, but at the end the lights hesitantly flicker back on.” – Ty Burr, The Boston Globe

“Klute is a sharp, slick thriller about murder, perversion, paranoia, prostitution and a lot of other wonderful things about life in New York City. Jane Fonda gives her best performance to date. She makes all the right choices, from the mechanics of her walk and her voice inflection to the penetration of the girl’s raging psyche. It is a rare performance.” – Jay Cocks, Time Magazine

“It holds up beautifully as a moody, eccentric take on the classic Homeric premise of a hero’s journey home. With all the city’s gangs after them, plus the police, the accused street toughs have to negotiate the subway system and enemy turf. One of the few tailor-made cult movies that deserves its cult, The Warriors has a rich pulpy atmosphere that seems sprung from a lurid comic book.” – Scott Tobias, The A.V. Club

“Tommy Wiseau thrust his flexing naked ass into the psyches of cult-film lovers with a disturbing yet strangely hypnotic ferocity. He opened up the Pandora’s box of his warped imagination, and bats and ghosts and spiders and other creepy-crawlies of the psychological variety flew out with such insane force and intensity that a decade later, we as a culture are still asking, ‘What the fuck was that?’” – Nathan Rabin, The Dissolve

“Saturday Night Fever was Gene Siskel’s favorite movie, and he watched it at least 17 times. We all have a powerful memory of the person we were at that moment when we formed a vision for our lives. Tony Manero stands poised precisely at that moment. He makes mistakes, he fumbles, he says the wrong things, but when he does what he loves he feels a special grace. We are right to remember his strut, and the beauty of his dancing.” – Roger Ebert, The Great Movies

“Filled with crazy background action, like a cross between a Robert Altman comedy and a Mad Magazine margin-doodle. Grease is a pure pop construct, fueled by movie-star poses, hit songs, and persistent audience fantasies of being an acceptable kind of ‘bad.’ Barry Gibb-penned disco theme aside, Grease doesn’t really belong to any one era. It’s like it’s always existed.” – Noel Murray, The A.V. Club

“The real reason to wallow once more in its parade of faux Madonnas and real whores, rich junkies and jerkwads, parasitic paparazzi, dim-bulb starlets, drunken louts and the lowest of the low—that’d be journalists—is to recognize, with stunning clarity, the morally bankrupt, media-fried here and now. Everything has changed, and nothing has changed. How sour it still is.” – David Fear, Time Out New York

“Appropriates Fellini’s rambling, anecdotal structure and pet obsessions: curvy ladies, dwarves and juxtapositions of the sacred with the profane. (Yes, there’s even a circus.) But The Great Beauty is more than mere homage. Filtered through Sorrentino’s own rambunctious sensibility, it’s a richly symbolic meditation on aging, mortality and precious time wasted.” – Sean Burns, Philadelphia City Paper

“Frank Capra gazes at evangelism and sees showbiz razzle-dazzle, the tent revival is now a raucous philharmonic hall with ‘faith’ a brand name in electrified neon letters. The preacher’s position between the ballyhoo of spectacle and the eager audience is the same as the director’s, the fakery that leads to truth is a path understood by Capra.” – Fernando F. Croce, CinePassion

“Certain movies provoke critics to plead with an audience to be patient. It’s a pitiful but sometimes necessary last resort. This startling, shrewd film rewards your loyalty with its wry intelligence. The usual emphasis in a detective film is upended so that procedure, thrillingly, is more important than action. In its own way, this is one of the most intense cop movies you’ll see.” – Wesley Morris, The Boston Globe

“The Muppet Movie was released in 1979, just in time to sum up much of what 1970s pop culture had to offer: soft rock, self-help, and crafting. In the wrong hands, these could be insipid, but Jim Henson had great hands. With his Muppets, Henson found a balance between fuzzy post-hippie positivism and self-deprecating wit.” – Noel Murray, The Dissolve

“In an era full of auteur-driven turbulence in Hollywood, The Sting stands out as a model of old-school craft, a richly appointed studio production with big stars and a premium on efficiency and pace. The film isn’t particularly ambitious or distinctive, but something much rarer in the ’70s: a broadly appealing entertainment that runs like a top.” – Scott Tobias, The A.V. Club

“Monty Python’s Metropolis. It’s a glimmering hunk of fractured brilliance riddled with Orwellian paranoia encased in a production design seemingly pieced together from the shared dreams of Franz Kakfa and Salvador Dali, and shot from cruelly low angles. The ridiculous filling in the Twinkies of your dreams.” – Wesley Morris, San Francisco Examiner

“Yes, it’s as entertaining as you have heard. Maybe more so. Raiders of the Lost Ark is, in fact, about as entertaining as a commercial movie can be. An adventure film that plays like an old-time 12-part serial that you see all at once, instead of Saturday-to-Saturday. It’s the kind of movie that first got you excited about movies when you were a kid.” – Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune